URGENT: Please help Aziz and Gemma!

URGENT: Please help Aziz and Gemma!

**Aziz Hussini (Home Office Ref: *H1206065*) is currently in detention
and is due to be forcibly removed from the UK to Afghanistan on *Monday
12^rd March*, on charter flight *PVT081* to Kabul at *23:10.*

**

**

The UK Borders Agency arrested 18 year old Aziz on his wedding day,
bursting into the Registry Office and dragging him away. Waiting to walk
down the aisle, Gemma, his distraught fiancé, who is a British citizen,
did not know what was happening until 2 UKBA officials in their stab
proof vests came out to tell her that her wedding could not happen
because they had detained her fiancé.

**

/Aziz and Gemma Gemma on the morning of her wedding/

Aziz and Gemma have been together for over a year, and were planning a
life together before they were torn apart by Border Agency officials.
Gemma is beside herself with worry, and hasn’t eaten or slept properly
since Monday, when she was supposed to get married.Gemma first met Aziz
in February last year, and says that /“When I first saw him, the
connection was there straight away, we’ve been together ever
since”./This is not a ‘sham marriage’, Gemma has had an ‘/A’/ tattood
behind her ear at Christmas as a symbol of her commitment to Aziz, and
is learning Dari, Aziz’s native language.She says she will fly to
Afghanistan to live with Aziz if necessary.

Their relationship has never been properly considered by the UKBA even
though they clearly knew he was due to get married on the day that he
was detained at the Registry Office.

Aziz arrived in the UK 2009 as an unaccompanied minor. Despite a
difficult start, Aziz is flourishing in Glasgow.When he first arrived in
the UK, he couldn’t speak a word of English, but is now hoping to study
at University and has many close friends who he has met through
collage.After first studying English, Aziz is now working for an HNC in
Computing, where Gemma says he worked twice as hard as everyone else.In
Glasgow, he was completed a voluntary work placement as textiles artist
with Little Persia,a Persian rug shop in Glasgow.He has also received
awards from the John Muir Environmental Award, and an accreditation from
the ASDAN charitable foundation, illustrating his commitment to his
local community.

Forcibly removing Aziz to Afghanistan would be a devastating violation
of his Right to a Family and Private Life (Article 8 of the European
Convention of Human Rights, 1998 Human Rights Act).The UKBA didn’t even
bother to consider Gemma when they refused to allow Aziz to continue
with his life in the UK, claiming that /“There is no evidence that the
appellant has any close family in the UK”./Now that they’ve ruined Gemma
and Aziz’s wedding, they must know that this isn’t the case.

However, Aziz is also terrified that if he is returned, he will never be
reunited with Gemma.His life is in danger in Afghanistan, which he fled
after being commissioned to make satirical depictions of a
fundamentalist party leader on a carpet.Aziz has lost contact with his
family, so will have no-one to support or protect him, and would be left
alone and afraid in an impoverished and dangerous country he has had no
contact with for the three years he has been in the UK.

Aziz is due to be forcibly removed on one of the infamous charter
flights used by the UKBA for mass deportations of people to the same
country. Flight number PVT 081 is scheduled to depart at 23.10 to Kabul
on Monday evening.

These charter flights have been regularly criticised. In particular,
guards accompanying the detainees have been criticised for using
excessive force as there are not any other passengers to act as
witnesses. Similarly concern has been expressed about the UKBA’s
practise of substituting people at the last minute without warning to
fill spaces on the flight left by people whose lawyers managed to
successfully get them off the flight.

**

*Please urgently contact the Home Secretary, Theresa May, your MP, and
Aziz’s MP, Ann McKechin, to ask them to halt the forced removal of Aziz,
and allow him to stay in Glasgow, with Gemma, where he belongs.*

**

*Contact the Home Secretary:***

Theresa May, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Office
2 Marsham Street

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